Solar and wind cheaper than fossil fuels –more evidence

The most cost-effective power sources are solar and wind,
re-affirms a study that includes social costs,
such as the environmental costs of the climate
change caused by CO2 from fossil fuels
(the social cost of carbon, or SCC),
and the health damage caused by sulfur dioxide pollution.
It’s time to stop paying for utility executive profits with our health and dollars.
No fracking, no pipeline.

Renewable energy is becoming more and more
competitive. Alternative and renewable energy sources are increasingly
becoming more affordable. According to a new study published in the Journal
of Environmental Studies and Sciences, it is now less costly in
America to get electricity from wind turbines and solar panels, than it
is to get it from coal-fired power plants. The study shows, when climate
change costs and other health impacts were factored in, that it is even
more cost effective to convert an existing coal-fired power plant with
a wind turbine, than it is to keep the old fossil fuel-burning plant.

Unsubsidized renewable energy is now cheaper than electricity from coal and
gas power stations in Australia as well. Wind farms in Australia
can produce energy at AU$80/MWh. Meanwhile, coal plants are
producing energy at AU$143/MWh and gas at AU$116/MWh. And the myth that alternative energy sources
were enormously more costly than the typical
fossil fuels, is proving to be untrue. And after initial
investment costs are waged, making them now ameliorated, and the raw materials for solar and wind power are free, besides
costs of upkeep, and the harvesting of those sources doesn’t cause
mayhem to the environment. Making it an ever-more appealing alternative
energy source.

“The perception that fossil fuels are cheap and
renewables are expensive is now out of date… The
fact that wind power is now cheaper than coal and gas in a country with some of the world’s best fossil fuel
resources shows that clean energy is a game changer which promises to turn
the economics of power systems on its head,” – Michael Liebreich,
chief executive of Bloomberg New Energy Finance.

The study results show that our electricity system, which generates
fully 40 percent of the nation’s carbon dioxide pollution, is
costly. Already, climate change is contributing to record heat
waves, floods, drought, wildfires and severe storms. Such extreme
weather caused more than $140 billion in damages in 2012. American
taxpayers picked up nearly $100 billion of those costs, according to
an NRDC report released in May, 2013….

We arrive at our results in large part based upon a measure
developed by economists called the
“social cost of
carbon,” or SCC. The SCC estimates how much damage one ton of
CO2 emitted today causes now and into the future. Our study also
includes economic damages caused by sulfur dioxide (SO2), another
pollutant released by coal-fired power plants. Every year, SO2
causes thousands of premature deaths, respiratory ailments (e.g.
asthma and bronchitis), heart disease and a host of ecosystem
damages.

So fossil fuels and nuclear are the alternative power sources,
and we need to stop subsidizing them with our health and environment
and get switch to solar and wind as quickly as we can.